


Existing, as a Joke

by TUNiU



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Lorca is there for two lines, Love, M/M, Post-Episode: s01e05 Choose Your Pain, Pre-Episode: s01e07 Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad, Tilly is there for a couples of sentences, mind-altering experiences, self-inflicted pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:33:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27307780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TUNiU/pseuds/TUNiU
Summary: Set in that brief period of time (around episode Lethe) when Paul had to interface with the spore drive without his arm augments. There was a lot of jumping during that time, as we see in a montage. Paul and Hugh, before and after, a black alert.
Relationships: Hugh Culber/Paul Stamets
Comments: 4
Kudos: 50





	Existing, as a Joke

Due to the ship’s orthogonal movement through space, any organic substance would torque itself around the sagittal plane. It did so in mass order. However, the Discovery had been designed to spin its saucer section so to create opposite torque. If all went well, the liquids on board ship began spinning, then the ship itself spun, then--most importantly of all--all the people on board _did not_ spin.

Paul Stamets had yet to figure out how to avoid the whole death-by-helical-torsion disaster without reliance on the ship’s spinning saucer. This meant that Discovery was currently the only ship in the fleet which could jump space with the spore-activated displacement hub drive.

He was hesitant to try and tweak a system which--though ham-fisted--worked perfectly to protect everyone on board. He had a feeling his late research partner Justin Straal had been tweaking his own system aboard the Discovery’s sister ship the Glenn. Paul still had nightmares about the bodies left behind. He hated the thought it could have been Straal’s fault, but the other option was that it was a random fluke of the drive. And if it wasn’t someone’s fault, and it was just a random act of the god he didn’t believe in, then it couldn’t be predicted and prevented on Discovery.

If it was random, that meant with every jump, they ran the risk of killing themselves in a most horrific way.

Paul stood in the interface chamber, preparing himself. Several metal needles framed where he would stand. His husband --his beautiful, patient husband-- Hugh Culber was sterilizing the apparatus with a handheld unit. Paul wasn’t paying attention to the UV light or hum as he stared at the long shafts. He was just waiting, idly staring. Letting the image of Hugh flutter around in the periphery.

Once Hugh was done, he walked over and grabbed Paul’s hands. He held on, assuredly, caressing his wrists. Paul looked at Hugh’s face. His wonderful husband always worried so much about him.

“I’ll be fine,” Paul said.

“Don’t even try,” Hugh chided. “I see the scans.” 

Paul reached up and laid his hands on Hugh’s waist. He pulled gently until they were standing so close each breath had their chests touching. Hugh’s hands went a little too low on Paul’s back to be work-place appropriate, but Paul was facing away from a wall, so who could see?

Paul rested his forehead against Hugh’s and gently knocked their noses together. They breathed the same air, and when Paul spoke his lips were so close they kissed Hugh’s with every word. “I’ll be fine,” Paul repeated. “The best doctor in the universe is going to fix me.”

“How good can I be if I can’t talk you out of this?” he asked, his voice small.

The ship-wide comm bleeped and, “ _Black alert_ ,” Captain Lorca’s voice said over the intercom.

Hugh kissed Paul once, gently. Then he unzipped Paul’s jacket and pushed it down off his arms. He folded it lengthwise and flung it over his elbow and then rolled Paul’s undershirt up and off as well. As soon as the shirt cleared Paul’s head, Paul bent over and kissed Hugh, quick and cute.

Hugh grinned hopelessly, enjoying Paul’s new found emotional expression, but also wary of just where it had come from. Then he led Paul by the hands to where he needed to stand for the needles. Hugh held onto one of Paul’s hands, even as he started backing away out of the chamber. Eventually their hands broke apart due to distance. The door closed in front of Hugh, who stayed standing right at the seam, the ends of his boots bending against the glass. Behind him stood a nurse with a rolling stretcher loaded with supplies.

At her station, Sylvia Tilly operated the controls which manipulated the needles. The armature arranged itself around Paul’s chest. She paused, stared up at Paul’s face through the glass. He nodded at her, and she tapped the final button. The needles at the end of the device plunged into Paul’s sides. 

For the tiniest of moments, it didn’t hurt. Then Paul seized with the pain. His hands latched onto the handles helpfully welded to the sides of the interface for just this purpose. Even as his knees threatened to buckle, Paul spoke. "We’re ready,” he told Lorca, through the ship’s comm.

“ _Finally_ ,” Lorca snarked. “ _Engage spore drive_.”

Tilly tapped the necessary keys on her console. The spores flooded Paul’s chamber, and the...pain...went...away.

The clock ticked.

Everything human about Paul sloughed off until he was just energy. He floated through the mycelial paths, directed by an artificial desire created by the ship he dragged behind him. Here, he was pure. There was no fear, no death. It was a cycle he had been part of for billions of years before he was born, and would be a part of again, after he died, for billions of years more. One hundred and twenty years as living matter was less than a rounding error on such scales. Physical matter was a joke. Energy carried life. So Paul lived, separate from his body-form. He lived and existed as the eons floated beyond him until...

The clock tocked.

Pain...came….back.

The needles withdrew. Paul fell to his knees and Hugh caught him before his face hit the ground. He was turned face up. Hugh scanned him quickly with a medical tricorder then nodded at the nurse, who grabbed his legs. They lifted him and placed him on the stretcher.

Paul laughed. He patted at Hugh’s arm and face. It was all pointless. But in a hopeful way. Paul felt such pure elation at the fact he and Hugh would exist for billions of years no matter what happened here. He and Hugh had lived together before they knew each other, before they were even born. There was no urgency, no sadness, in death. It was merely a transition, the waves becoming the ocean. He wanted to tell Hugh this, but all that came out was gleeful smiles and laughter. Even as Hugh’s face grew more pinched, Paul just tried to push the knowledge out at his husband, in every way, except verbally.

* * *

When he finally found his ability to speak properly, Paul was in sickbay, on a biobed. The needlepoint penetrations were healed and he was in a soft hospital gown. He looked around and found Hugh sitting at a console, typing. He shifted himself under the blanket so that he could stay staring at Hugh. It was a wonderful way to pass the time until they were together forever.

Eventually Hugh looked up and noticed Paul. “Hey,” he said gently, though they were the only ones currently in sickbay. He stood up and walked over to him. One of Hugh’s cold hands grabbed Paul’s wrist to manually feel for the pulse, even as his eyes looked up to read the information scrolling on the screen over Paul’s bed. He sighed at the conflicting information.

Hugh fluttered his knuckles up Paul’s cheek until his fingers met hair and then he petted Paul’s face with long soothing strokes. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“Illuminated by love for you,” Paul answered truthfully. That was all that existed inside him right now.

Hugh blushed. “How high are you?” he asked rhetorically.

Paul thought. It was difficult with Hugh’s petting lighting up his brain. It took awhile but eventually, Paul said, “six feet.”

“You wish,” Hugh snarked softly.

Paul’s face fell since that hadn’t been the right answer for Hugh. Hugh kissed his frown away. That was good, it meant that Hugh still loved him. Would love him forever and ever, even when they lived in the mycelia.

“Well, your readings are as confusing as they always are now. But you’re not bleeding and not dying, so I am releasing you to bedrest for two days,” he said. “Or as long as Lorca lets you,” he added darkly.

Paul reached out and tried to rub Hugh’s frown away. It made him frown harder.

Hugh wrangled Paul into a wheelchair and patiently pushed him all the way back to their quarters. He even helped him get dressed in pajamas, then he tucked Paul into bed with a kiss. 

“I’ll be back soon,” Hugh told him.

“We are gonna be together, forever,” Paul said, finally finding the words to share what he knew.

Hugh smiled, brightly, and said, “of course we are.”

Paul went to sleep, secure in the knowledge that Hugh would be there, forever and ever. Not even death would separate them.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I did write this entire fic for that joke. I even googled how tall Anthony Rapp is, to make sure the joke would work. (FYI, google says he's 5'8".)
> 
> also, yes that one description is from The Good Place, of which I have sadly never seen an episode, though the tumblr gif sets make my heart hurt in the best way.


End file.
